


Of Love and Lies

by HeartofMossyStone



Series: A Little More Time, Duology [1]
Category: Purple Hyacinth - Ephemerys & Sophism (Webcomic)
Genre: All speculative, Bad Things Happen In The Cave, F/M, Flower Language, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, References to Illness, References to Torture, Set after PH, Warning!, but it's not that bad!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 13:40:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29576937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeartofMossyStone/pseuds/HeartofMossyStone
Summary: “Say it again.”“I love you.”“Again.”“I love you.”“Again.”It was Kieran's nature to love Lauren Sinclair.
Relationships: Lauren Sinclair & Kieran White, Lauren Sinclair/Kieran White
Series: A Little More Time, Duology [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2172885
Comments: 6
Kudos: 48





	Of Love and Lies

Of love and lies, the true heart knows-

Look through the eyes, all dreaming shows;

When from true love, a lone heart turns,

A broken soul is all it earns.

If, from the rubble, new love grows,

A willing heart that action shows,

But with new love, resentment grows;

You’ve earned your prize but met your foes.

Then with new joy, there comes new hate-

You’ve learned to love far too late.

_ Of Love and Lies (Original) _

·················•·················•

“Say it again.”

“I love you.”

“Again.”

“I love you.”

“ _ Again. _ ” 

“Do you enjoy this so much, Lauren?”

“ _ Just shut up and say it again, Kieran! _ ”

His smile is taut and mocking, designed to eat away at her courage. “Which one do you want, Lauren? Silence or lies?”

Oh, how hard she must be trying not to cry. He has always liked the way she purses her lips when she is too angry to speak. “Fine. I love you.” Lie. 

She shakes, her eyes full of emotions, some deserved and some not. They always are when she looks at him (and curse her for that), but he’s never seen such a shattered gold. Lauren Sinclair does not break easily. He is almost disappointed.

“I love you.” Lie. He takes a step closer to her. “I love you.” Lie. Another step and she makes no move to back away, just stares at him like she can’t reconcile what she is hearing with what she believes. “I love you.” Lie, step, stare. “I love you.” Lie. He is close enough to touch her, to hear her tight and panicked breaths. “I love you,” he lies, as he reaches out to her. “I love you,” he lies, as he pulls her into an embrace. “I love you,” he lies, as his lips brush her ear and she trembles under his touch. He runs a finger along her jaw. “Lauren Sinclair, I love you with all of my heart. I always will.” 

She rears back and slams her forehead into his nose. As he stumbles away, her foot flies up and she launches it into his solar plexus. He manages to keep his feet under him, laughing breathlessly as he clutches his stomach.

“How are you doing that?” Lauren demands. “ _ Tell me how you’re doing that _ .”

“Lying?” Kieran blinks up at her. “It’s easy, darling. You just say something you don’t mean.” He straightens up. “Something you’ll never mean. It’s easiest when you lie to someone who is of no value to you.” 

“Say something that I know is a lie.” Oh, how badly she wants to believe that she is the broken one. 

“My eyes are brown.” An obvious enough lie, one that she can’t possibly deny. How many times has she commented on the color of his eyes? 

“I don’t understand.” She blinks at him, all fiery with her red hair and gold eyes, but so, so subdued. In this moment, she looks more beautiful than she ever has before. 

“I don’t understand either. How did you fall for any of it? Am I so good of a liar that you just can’t see it unless I want you to? Or did you ignore all the signs? I can see how you might be desperate for a little affection, Lauren, but going to an assassin for love? Most people wouldn’t call that wise.” 

Her hands fall to her side, and her fingers itch for her gun, he can tell. She brushes the metal and he grins, feral and tamed and just  _ waiting _ for her to try something. Her fingers slide around the grip and he lunges at her, knocking her hand away and catching her wrist. She stumbles and he catches her around the waist, spinning around and pressing her back against the wall. 

“I never took you to be the kind who likes pain, Lauren.” In the moment, he doesn’t know what’s burning at him from behind her gold eyes, but he knows it’s all consuming and that  _ he _ is burning. “Can I kiss you? For old time’s sake.” (But, of course, he does not love her.  _ He does not love Lauren Sinclair. _ ) 

He knows she’ll refuse the way he knows he’s damned, but she pushes back against him and presses her lips to his, and it hurts the same way it always has, deep inside, the way balm hurts and heals a wound. And she’s warm and right and everything good in his life. And she runs her hands through his hair, knocking it loose and it tumbles around her fingers. And she pulls away and asks him to  _ say it again _ . 

“I love you.” 

And she sees that it’s a lie because she burns one more kiss against his lips and knees him as hard as she can between the legs.

Kieran stumbles back, her warmth disappearing in an instant, replaced with the freezing rush of reality. It was, he reflects, nice to dream, one last time. “So what, Officer?”

“You’re sick.” Tears stream down her face. “You bastard, you’re sick. After all this time?  _ They _ are gone, and you still can’t break free. Did I fail you, Kieran? Was there something more I should have done, or were you always broken?”

Finally, she admits the truth to herself. Finally, she puts the blame where it ought to be. Finally, she is breaking free. 

“Are you going to shoot me, Lauren?”

Oh, those gold eyes are cold. He should have kissed her longer before he died. Ah, but there’s a lot he  _ should have _ done, and not a lot he  _ did _ . But… if he were to make a Venn diagram of things he should have done and things he did, the center where they meet would be empty but for loving ( _ not loving, not loving, not loving _ ) Lauren.

“No.” She turns away. “You’re not worth the lead.” 

“I love you!” He calls, just to see what will happen.

She flinches, then looks over her shoulder. “I love you, Kieran, I always will.” Her smile is ice. “If you were me, you would know that was a lie.”

She staggers out of the cave like a drunken woman, and Kieran wonders if she  _ feels _ drunk, because he certainly does. He feels like he’s swallowed too much poison, and now he’s watching himself destroy everything good in his life, but he just  _ can’t stop _ . He braces himself against the wall and vomits, again, and again until he feels empty in too many ways to count, and bile drips from his lips, along with a little bit of blood.

Lying is easy. Kieran can lie for hours and not once make a mistake or cause any doubt. It’s not the lying that hurts, it’s trying to convince  _ her _ . Only after months of careful practice could he make the smallest lie seem real to her. Months of feeding her half-truths and qualifiable statements had led to spinning memories that he didn’t truly have, but even when he could do that, lying about his emotions was impossible. 

Lauren had told him once—long, long ago—that if someone was convinced a lie was true, she would not be able to detect it. Surely, he had decided, the inverse must be true. If someone could convince themself that a truth was a lie… 

It hurts, though, to teach yourself something that goes so directly against your nature. And it was Kieran’s nature to love Lauren. It was his nature to follow her, to protect her, to seek her forgiveness above anyone else’s, because it was she who mattered—it was she who cared. To deny something so natural tore at him, and every day of practice left him weak and trembling. 

_I do not love Lauren Sinclair_ , he would tell himself, and stare in his mirror. _I will never love Lauren Sinclair._ _Lauren Sinclair loves me_. He would put on a devious smile. _But that is foolish of her, because I do not return the feelings. I do not. Love. Lauren Sinclair._

And sometimes he would make a mistake.  _ But I _ do _ love Lauren Sinclair. _ And that was when the knives would come out. His time in the Phantom Scythe had taught him well how to deal with errant thoughts and confused notions. 

**The pain will break you, Kieran. The pain will heal you, Kieran. The pain will build you up, Keiran. The pain, Kieran, is how you learn.**

And maybe you can’t teach a dog new tricks, because the pain was just as effective now as it had been all those years ago. Loving Lauren Sinclair meant pain. Deep down, where light didn’t shine, and lies couldn’t reach, Kieran knew that loving Lauren Sinclair meant pain for  _ her _ , and that was why he should stop—pain was nothing to him. But on the surface, pain was something, and it was a mind-numbing, love-ending, heart-breaking, skin-tearing, blood-smeared something.

He cleaned up the blood, he wrapped the wounds, and he lied to Lauren Sinclair. And Lauren Sinclair did not hear his lie. So he told Lauren Sinclair a tiny, insignificant truth, and she heard a lie. And thus, Kieran White broke free of her curse; and thus, Kieran White was the master of his fate; and thus, Kieran White had power over Lauren Sinclair, to save or to damn. Ah, but only ever to save. 

It was to save, even as he lied to her, and told the truth to her, and did whatever disgusting, monstrous mess of things needed to be done for her to think what he wanted her to think and believe what he needed her to believe, and go where he needed, and come when he needed, because she  _ trusted  _ him. Worse, she loved him. And he  loved her did not love her. And  because he loved her even though he did not love her, he would do whatever was necessary to keep her and her friends alive, because that was the promise he had made. 

He is a murderer, a monster, an abomination before the God who made him, but even with everything that damns him, he will not allow  _ betraying Lauren Sinclair _ to be added to the list. Maybe he’ll get a shortened sentence in hell.

He retches again, and claws his way deeper into the cave, just hoping for somewhere to collapse. His  _ somewhere _ ends up being the cold stone floor, no different than anywhere else he could have fallen. But he needs to know this was worthwhile, and he needs to know that the blood in his mouth was worth the loss, and he needs to know that she will be safe; so he crawls the rest of the way to his desk and, though he is on all fours, he reaches up and drags his hand heavily along the wood until his fingers strike a paper and it sails off past him, resting on the ground. 

He reaches for it and reads it on his knees, wondering if he should pray while he’s there, or if the doors are long closed for such a path. More blood drips onto the paper and he begins to wonder if so many lies—so many truths?—have hurt him more than he expected. 

No matter how many times he reads the missive, the words do not change, so he shoves it away. It was the right thing to do. Not the kind thing, or the best thing, or the comfortable thing, or the easy thing, or the hard thing, or the loving thing. It was just the right thing. 

And it wasn’t, Kieran dared to think, too wrong of him to hope she would bring flowers to his grave. Absinth, asphodel, nettle, straw (broken and whole), and tuberose. It would be an evil little bouquet. Bitterness, regret, cruelty, oaths (broken and kept), and dangerous pleasures. Perhaps… oh, he didn’t deserve it—perhaps daffodils. Perhaps her forgiveness. 

Kieran collapsed and his surroundings blurred. The world smelt of blood and bile as it faded to black, and he spent his last hours of freedom unconscious.

_Hyacinth,_ the letter read, _we remain strong, and your services are needed._ _Your bond to us is not broken. Do not forget your place. Do not forget you are ours._

_ Remove your distractions, or we will remove them for you. _

**Author's Note:**

> Bonjour! I hope you enjoyed this. I wrote the poem at the beginning quite a few years ago, and it fit too well for me to ignore this idea. If you liked this, please check out the second part: Roses and Lilies and Lavender.


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